Thorner

I’ll never forgot my dad telling me as a kid, “the scoreboard fell. But Hasek caught it.” Both parts of the sentence seemed so absurd, I was so confused. That half of it was true was still pretty astounding at the time I think my follow up was, “did it happen during the game?” Haha

Absolutely. Good teams continually, demonstrably find their way out from underneath the “undesirable” contracts: chalk it up along with “how are we going to pay our RFAs??” to the “problems good teams have to deal with” side of the cart we like to put before the horse at every available opportunity. The first step is doing everything you can to win right now. THEN you worry about maintaining it (ie the future). But that isn’t how we’ve built for years, now. We’ve done the opposite: “only make moves for now IF they don’t harm the future”. The future that never will arise without prioritizing the now. Eyes always on the horizon. Never on right here, now, what’s right in front of us. Some little wise green guy said something like that I think

Good post. There’s no perfect. We are letting it be the enemy of good far too often imo

Board stalwarts like yourself contribute greatly to that and beyond. Not pointed out enough, personally, what you add to the experience. The fans are the experience at this point, frankly

It’s interesting: the team being a crater for a decade has sort of gradually robbed from, and sullied the discussion around the team itself. At some point, putting on my nerd glasses and deciding I’d like to reasonably turn down a potential addition because I’ve found a metric i don’t like, and have a “crafty” idea for someone I think would fit better, loses its charm when you realize those other guys aren’t coming. Or, really, anyone. Debating intelligently between which guy we want sort of just eventually devolves into, “honestly, I’ll take what I can get.” anyways. I miss Rick.

I understand that but I’m no more convinced adding Kadri is bad than I am that “no move” is bad. In fact I’m reasonably convinced “no move” is bad given recent past precedent Less certain Kadri would be bad the biggest boon to not adding Kadri is that it keeps our options open for something better: but the rub is that we never capitalize on that opportunity lol so in essence, every one of these hypotheticals becomes a binary choice. “Kadri, or nothing.” I’m almost always going to say “yes” in a vacuum because, well, the sabres do indeed apparently live in a vacuum. I’ve seen the results of doing nothing. So many times, that I expect similar until something else miraculously emerges from the dearth. At that point everyone can laugh and say I was foolish to doubt them. Those days can be there for anyone who needs them. Ill just laugh and be happy we are finally good

My point isn’t so much that it’s not Kadri as that it’s never anyone

You think status quo is different this year? I disagree completely. It’s the same as every recent year. As dudacek always says: none of it matters if the in-house core (which, for us, is the youth realizing its potential) doesn’t perform. No impact outside additions. It’s another year expecting and counting on the youth to catapult the team into taking the next step. We’ve been a “good young team” on the rise multiple times over the last 10 years, I truly don’t see a difference. Will the results be different? We can’t know that yet. We’ve cycled through coaches. Will Ruff be better? I’m hopeful, but time will tell. Status quo. We “ran back” the roster as much this offseason as any recent. The retooling of the bottom 6 is being drastically overplayed as far as makeover- these are the types of moves, tinkering at the bottom of the lineup, that cup contenders do. There’s been very little, see: No change to the core or the upper portion of the lineup be it top 6 or top 4. It’s a run back, more less. And the biggest thing: yet another year since “EEE” of being among the lowest spenders in the league. You cannot seriously buy the narrative that anything of note has changed. The strategy is the strategy: win while spending less than everyone. The scoreboard has changed. Hope being the strategy is the same. KA year 5, here we go. After we ALL said to “expect a big offseason.” Funny how that fades as September roles around

People love to debate the risks of adding him and Kadri falling off, but aren’t weighing the risk of not doing so There’s risk on both sides. Adding Kadri apparently sets us up potentially for “obscurity.” Failing to add him or taking the risk of adding guys like him has left us in obscurity to a certainty

I need a list of all your official terms Better than EA’s “sniper, playmaker” etc

Spoiler alert!

Personally, I think it’s been 2 years now I’ve been saying I’d pick Quinn to end up our best forward. But it’s super early days, and the race is wide open

Way too early to know who’ll be the better player between the two. their production difference is minuscule thus far, JJ is pacing for 1 more goal, and 5 less assists than Quinn over 82 i know JJ has played more games, but it’s not so much so as to suggest he’s realized more of his potential than Quinn has, his: over the 57 games JJ has played that go beyond Quinn’s 104, JJ’s ppg over 82 improved to the extent he’d be registering 44 points over 82 compared to the 41 he would be averaging extrapolating out the earlier portion of his career. I mean there’s some development there but really both are in the same boat re: hypothetical unlocked potential relative to what they have to give But if you think Quinn has a greater store of tools to draw on while converting that potential, it makes sense you’d expect him to be the better player

This is what I was saying about Byram. Not only do you not need to hit to be good, it’s more often indicative of the opposite Lidstrom’s tactical positioning was always too good, his stick work too disruptive to find himself being caught chasing and “laying the body” on the regular

Makes sense to me - they aren’t independent events, there’s a ton of causation where the group as a whole benefits from the increase of the individual (1 goal often comes with 2 helpers). It also doesn’t appear as strange mathematically when you remember it’s the top 12 and not the only 12: some guys on the roster CAN have their point totals fall by the wayside it only looks like a “clean sweep” cause the parameter stops at 12, and it doesn’t need to be the same 12 on each side of the ledger

Does it weigh expected games played? Or are these all per 82? 50 more goals would be a lot…interesting thing is I see no reason why the athletic would be inclined to be biased in our favour…so clearly we have a lot of talent the idea all 12 improve upon last year at once seems to suggest a flaw in the model imo, however As mentioned, 50 more would be a lot: but I suppose not astronomical; would have been good for 4th last season We had 296 and finished 3rd two years ago 🤷‍♂️ The 50 more I suggested the numbers implied puts us exactly at 296 again. So there’s a method to the madness

Does it ever: they are projecting all top 12 scoring finishers finishing ahead of where they finished last year, a clean sweep 59 > 80 59 > 72 56 > 70 50 > 67 47 > 63 33 > 48 30 > 42 29 > 37 28 > 32 21 > 32 20 > 29 19 > 24 All told an increase of 141 points in the top 12 …divided by around 3 points per goal…the numbers seem to suggest we improve our goal total by 50

Apparently after this move, and once Boston finalizes Swayman and co, Sabres will be solidly bottom 5 in payroll again and bottom 3 for actual dollars spent

And is sometimes charged with murder for doing so. It’s not undermining anything. To suggest otherwise is dangerous and willfully ignorant, even on a message board. The charge does not require premeditation as you wrongfully stipulated, nor does it necessarily even require specific intent in all cases.

Not a single Canadian skater in the top 18, kinda wild also, I’m starting to not recognize some of these names. What is happening to me, I’m scared..

Didn’t even want to chime in here. Feels wrong to even wade into what’s become an embarrassing discussion. But the willful ignorance on display is just infuriating and eventually dangerous. Anyone who thinks murder needs to be “premeditated” or even done with specific intent necessarily, doesn’t understand the law, didn’t read your link, and beyond engaging in a semantic discussion when it’s so obviously not the time displays an inability to grasp the truth when presented with clear facts. To argue against the wording in the thread title, right now, is absurd - - - It’s an unjust world. I hope the family can somehow find peace through this sickening tragedy

There’s so much raw, exceedingly high pedigree talent on our defensive end, so much losses-turned-into-draft-capital asset value spent on our defensive group, that rightly or wrongly my mind automatically sort of goes to a “they’ll be good, or what are we even doing here, anyway?” mindset: if 1oA + 1oA + 4oA (all 3 higher draft position than any forward on team I think?) don’t amount to the strength of this team, the whole operation is shot. It’s like it necessarily needs to be taken for granted. Dallin and Power certainly need to be good enough to buoy whatever partner. I have confidence they will. The biggest question mark always seems to be ETA: our D unit will be very good at some point I think, but is it this coming season? It’s really the only thing that matters right now which, speaks to the difficulty of answering your poll. They are still young. At least, Power and Byram. Whether they prove ready for focal-point prime time on a playoff team THIS year probably, in my estimation, comes down to how strenuously we need the unit to be the impetus of our success: if there is balance achieved across the roster, and Dahlin isn’t running around filling in the blanks.. we should be ok - - - went with the second option on polls 1 and 2, and the first option for poll 3

It’s only one more season…

Honestly, I thought they probably would be, but doing a little digging, it looks like last year’s global series games were NOT nationally televised and only aired on NHL network. Derp. maybe down to the timing of the games? https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-national-television-schedule-for-week-of-november-13-19 ..still, you’d think it’d be something the league would want..